When Joan Snyder and Joy McKee were six years old, they officially met their father for the first time in Calgary.

It was at the Canadian Pacific Railway station. While they hadn’t set eyes on their father since they were less than six months old, the identical twins recognized him right away as he got off the train with dozens of other soldiers hauling giant duffel bags. They had seen pictures of their dad, who cut a handsome and dashing figure with his neatly trimmed moustache and “military bearing.”

It was 1945 and Major Frederick Bermingham was returning from overseas for what was meant to be a furlough from the front lines in Germany. But the war ended before he could go back. So that morning marked a new beginning for the Bermingham family. The two girls ran to him, leaving their mother behind. They wrapped themselves around his legs.

“I can picture that station as if I was standing right there,” says Snyder. “That’s one of my childhood memories I hope I never forget. It’s just so strong in both of our minds.”

“We just left mom’s hands and ran and grabbed him,” said McKee. “We knew exactly who was our dad. It was an overwhelming experience. We weren’t shy. We weren’t afraid. We just knew that was our dad.”

For Snyder and McKee, it remains one of the strongest memories they have of their father, who went into the insurance business after the war. He passed away in November of 1999 at the age of 80.

Now 75 and both living in Drumheller, his daughters never thought they would have a new memory of their father. They were wrong.

Earlier this year, they received a phone call from a researcher from History channel’s reality series War Junk. The message was somewhat cryptic, but the sisters were told that a war artifact that belonged to their father had been unearthed deep in the Reichswald Forest in the Rhineland region near the German-Dutch border.

Bermingham was part of the 2nd Canadian Anti-Tank Regiment during The Battle of The Rhineland. He left something behind when he departed in March of 1945 to return home and meet his twin girls. Producers of the show wouldn’t tell Snyder and McKee what it was, but offered to fly them to Europe so they could receive it in person as a big reveal on the show.

It sounded good on paper, but both were reluctant.

“There’s a saying: ‘Anything that seems too good to be true usually is,'” says McKee. “That’s what I had playing in my mind: ‘This can’t be possible, it’s just so surreal. We had so many phone calls back and forth and I was so apprehensive about this.”

As it turns out, they had nothing to be apprehensive about. The two were flown to the Netherlands, where they eventually met with War Junk producer Wayne Abbott and historian David O’Keefe. After a few stops — including at the Groesbeek Canadian Cemetery — the group was met at the side of a country road by a young Dutch collector of war artifacts named Joey Lehman. He takes the twins deep into the Reichswald Forest to the exact spot where he found something sticking out of the ground a year earlier.

Snyder and McKee both asked that the Herald not reveal what their father’s artifact is. At the request of producers, they have been dutifully keeping it a secret from their family so the reveal will be more dramatic Thursday night when War Junk airs on History.

What we can say is that it is not a weapon and something Major Frederick Bermingham would have used every day as a soldier. He had even etched his last name into it.

Images of that signature were enhanced using computer technology. Once researchers uncovered the unusual Bermingham name, they were quick to zero in on the soldier. They then referred to the war diaries of the 2nd Canadian Anti-Tank Regiment and maps from the period, allowing them to take the twins to the exact place their father stood not long before he was sent home.

“I have never felt our dad’s presence, since his passing, as being so close,” says Snyder. “I felt like dad had actually come alive, he hadn’t died that November day. He was right there with us. It wasn’t like he had ever left. We were sharing with him, very closely in our hearts and minds, that period in the conflict that he was second-in-command of at the time. It was a strong feeling that he was physically there. It was quite strange. He was right there with us, standing in that spot.”

War Junk producer Wayne Abbott says it took researchers quite some time to track down Snyder and McKee. They were located only a week before shooting was to begin in Europe. And, yes, they were reluctant.

“I spoke to them quite a bit and I just told them ‘This is what we do,'” Abbott says. “‘This is an experience of a lifetime and we are giving it to you. We can take you to areas of the battlefield where your father was.’ That was what made this really unique. We can pinpoint it to a spot where their father stood, sat, ate his dinner. That’s what makes this one more rare, more powerful.”

The Bermingham story airs as part of Into the Rhineland, the second episode for War Junk’s two-part Season 4 opener Wednesday and Thursday. The episode focuses on the Rhineland Campaign, the first Allied push into Nazi Germany that involved the crossing of the Rhine River.

It was an integral part of Canada’s contribution to the war, described by producers as infiltrating “the last barrier to the heart of Hitler’s empire.”

But the thrust of War Junk is to take these epic stories and filter them through the personal experiences of one soldier and one artifact. In the case of Major Frederick Bermingham, it offered his twin daughters a glimpse of their father’s heroism and details of his history that was previously unknown to them.

“There was such horror in the war all around our airmen, sailors and soldiers that I think they didn’t want to talk about it a lot,” says McKee. “Joan and I were just five years old and just ready to start school when he came home. As we got older, he still didn’t talk a lot about it. He never really went into a lot of detail, probably trying to erase it from his mind as much as possible.”

War Junk airs Wednesday and Thursday on History. The story of Major Frederick Bermingham airs Thursday.

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